Salome Ghazanfari
(born in 1982 in Speyer, lives and works in Karlsruhe)Simin Keramati (born in 1970 in Tehran, lives and works in Tehran)Neda Razavipour(born in 1969 in Tehran, lives and works in Tehran)Myriam Schahabian (born in 1965 in Karlsruhe, lived and grew up in Tehran
till 1981, lives and works in Karlsruhe)Jinoos Taghizadeh
(born in 1971 in Tehran, lives and works in Tehran)

This exhibition shows artists, who broach the issues and circumstances
of everyday life in both Iran and in the diaspora, notably the contradictory
aspects of their own origins. The questions of individual identity
are linked inevitably with Iranian politics, religion and gender
roles, but serious thought is also given to the globalised system
of art and the mechanisms of the marketplace. The awareness of the
everyday life of the artists actively involved in Iran alternates
between the extremes of anticipation and endeavor, between inertia
and conviction. They apparently move easily between the parallel
environments of the private environment on the one hand and the
public environment on the other, between the unobserved and the
controlled and monitored. They develop themselves and their artistic
work in the field of conflict between adaption and autonomy. Thus
they create a collectively free space and scope for development
in the face of the cultural repression of a fundamentalist regime.
The Iranian artists living in the diaspora, however, raise the issues
of their complex socialisation, a mixture of Western, European and
Oriental philosophies/ideologies and experiences. They approach
the country of their parents from a distance, examining the meanings
of having and not having roots, between familiarity and unfamiliarity.
What is inbetween, provides for a way of life, which consciously
or unconsciously, leaves traces in their artistic work. Common to
all the artists involved in the exhibition is the evident, sometimes
melancholic sense of the fragility of their identities.

Guided tour through the
exhibition
Guided Tour with the Exhibition Curator, Bettina Schönfelder
on Saturday, 28th March at 16:00 and further by appointment on both
Thursday, 02nd April and Thursday, 09th April at 17:00 (Registration/reservation
is necessary - GEDOK Office: Tel. +49 (0) 721 374137)